THE VIREOS 
VT" OU know that if the birds should suddenly 
perish, there wouldn’t be a leaf, a blade of 
grass, or any green thing left upon the earth 
within a few years — it would be uninhabitable. 
When Dame Nature, the most thorough of 
housekeepers, gave to the birds the task of 
restraining insects within bounds so that man 
and beast could live, she gave the care of foliage 
to the vireos. It is true that most of the war- 
blers, and a few other birds too, hunt for their 
food among the leaves, but with nothing like 
the vireo’s painstaking care and thoroughness. 
The nervous, restless warblers flit from twig 
to twig without half exploring the foliage ; 
whereas the deliberate, methodical vireos search 
leisurely above and below it, cocking their little 
heads so as to look up at the under side of the 
leaf above them and to peck off the destroyers 
hidden there — ^bugs of many kinds and count- 
less little worms, caterpillars, weevils, inch- 
worms, May beetles, and leaf-eating beetles. 
Singing as they go, no birds more successfully 
combine work and play. 
Because they spend their lives among the 
foliage, the vireos are protectively coloured ; with 
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